


Touch Starved

by Petralice



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Fluff, Hair Braiding, Long Hair, Not Canon Compliant, Safe For Work, Thranto, Touch-Starved, kinda gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26383804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petralice/pseuds/Petralice
Summary: "On Csilla, Chiss from the same family will braid and style one another’s hair as a social activity. It is important for Chiss to give and receive that physical contact. I haven’t had anyone to style my hair for me, and I admit I’m quite bad at styling my own.”Eli snorted. “You? Bad at something? I don’t believe that!”Thrawn chuckled again. This time, the sound made Eli’s chest warm.---Eli visits Thrawn's quarters for some help with a project, only to find himself distracted by his lonely, homesick lieutenant.
Relationships: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	Touch Starved

**Author's Note:**

> AU where everything is the same but Thrawn's hair is long and Eli is even more gay

Eli should have gone to sleep hours ago. His bed waited just behind him, as inviting and comfortable as could be expected aboard a star cruiser, but he rested instead at his desk with his datapad in hand. These numbers…they just weren’t making sense. No matter how many calculations he did, no matter what factors he took into account, no matter how hard he squinted and scrolled and blinked and rubbed his eyes—nothing made the data perform as it should.

But he couldn’t go to sleep now. That would be letting the numbers win, and it was a matter of whatever personal pride he had left that he not be defeated by a datapad. He couldn’t just give up, but he could ask for help, and he knew there would be only one person awake that he could go to at this early hour.

After a moment of internal wrestling, Eli snatched the uncooperative datapad off his desk and exited into the hallway, not bothering to suppress a yawn. Since he was the lieutenant’s aide, Eli’s quarters weren’t far from Thrawn’s, and soon Eli was knocking a bit too loudly on the Chiss’s door.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” Eli said at the answering swish of the opening door, his eyes still locked on his datapad, “but I couldn’t sleep until these numbers added up properly. If you’re not busy, I hoped it’d be alright if you helped me comb through some of these and see where the discrepancy—”

The rest of the sentence dropped to the floor along with his jaw.

“What’s wrong, Ensign Vanto?” the Chiss had the audacity to ask.

Thrawn had opened the door wearing loose gray pajama pants—and nothing else. The blue of his skin made interesting shadows in the groove of every chiseled muscle, but Eli had seen him shirtless before when he’d roomed with him at the Academy. What he couldn’t tear his eyes away from was his hair; it was the same length it had been when they’d first met, but absent the frizz of battle and struggle. It fell near to his chest in one shiny blue-black sheet, dark against the pure cerulean skin.

The combination of long hair and easy relaxed muscle had done something to Eli that he could have never prepared for. When he found his voice again, Eli stammered, “I…didn’t realize your hair’d got so long. You’ve been wearing it up in a bun for a few months now.”

“Ah, yes,” Thrawn said, one hand coming up to brush a few strands behind his ear. “Chiss hair grows much faster than human hair, and we wear it long like this out of convenience. I’m not accustomed to getting it cut. I fear I may have gone too long without trimming it. But come in and let me see if I can help you with your data, Ensign.”

Eli followed Thrawn into his quarters, which he kept even more immaculate than Eli kept his. It was dark save for the light of the lamp on top of his desk. Eli set the datapad in the middle, and the two of them leaned together to look down at it.

“Uh, yeah,” said Eli, wondering why they had to be in such close proximity when Thrawn could have just picked up the pad. “Like I was saying, these numbers don’t add up. I’m trying my hardest to get on Rossi’s good side and I can’t figure out where I’m going wrong.”

“Getting on the Captain’s ‘good side’ might require more than this, but I understand. Do you see this data point, here?” He stopped scrolling and tapped the screen. “What other data do you have that supports this conclusion? I’m afraid I don’t see it listed anywhere here. Ensign?”

Eli had tried to keep his eyes on the screen, but they had drifted against his will to the way Thrawn’s hair fell over his face, swinging slightly and shining even in the dim light. He unclenched his hands, which he discovered he had tightened to keep from reaching out and touching it.

And now Thrawn stared at him through that curtain of hair with curious red eyes.

“Does my hair fascinate you so much?” Thrawn said, smiling softly.

Eli went pink, and the knowledge that Thrawn could sense facial heat made him go even pinker. What the hell was going on with him right now?

“I’m just jealous of how healthy it looks, to be honest,” Eli lied. “Mine’s always a mess.”

“Chiss hair is not as fragile, so it tends to look healthy. Csilla can get quite cold, after all. May I touch yours?”

May he touch…? He’d said it so casually, Eli almost forgot to stutter when he answered, “Sure, go ahead.”

He submitted to Thrawn’s long fingers in his hair, playing, rearranging, mussing and smoothing, and he was amazed at where the night had ended up. If this were any other being in the galaxy he would have tensed and jerked away with some choice curses, but because it was Thrawn he wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable. And he wasn’t sure how to take that.

Thrawn withdrew his hand. “It is a different texture from my own, to be sure. Feel mine.” And he turned away from Eli, flipping his hair to let it cascade down his muscled back.

Eli glanced at the datapad on the desk, which Thrawn had apparently forgotten about, and wondered what his parents would think if they knew he was currently in the quarters of his superior—who was topless—about to run his hands through alien tresses at 2 AM. He wasn’t anywhere close to as tired as he had been before he’d walked in here.

Eli caught the glow of Thrawn’s eyes as he looked over his shoulder. Before he could say anything, Eli reached up (Thrawn was nearly two meters tall, compared to Eli’s average height), buried his fingers in the Chiss’s hair, and ran them down its length.

It was like dragging a palm across velvet. He had never felt hair like this, hadn’t even thought it was possible. It certainly looked soft, but he would have never guessed it would be _this_ soft, especially not on someone like Thrawn. He couldn’t help but keep touching it, feeling it slip through his fingers.

It was almost imperceptible, but he could have sworn Thrawn sighed.

“Are you okay?” Eli asked, concerned. “I’m not upsetting you, am I?”

“On the contrary,” Thrawn said quietly, almost wistfully. “It’s been a long time since someone has touched my hair.”

Now things should have gotten awkward. But Thrawn wasn’t very well versed in things like that, so Eli just said, “The datapad—”

“Yes, the datapad. I’m sorry. Where were we?”

When he turned back around, Eli caught the tail end of the sad look in his eyes before he threw up his normal, unreadable mask.

Eli squinted. “Something’s bothering you.”

“I will be alright.”

“No, I want to talk about it. I wanna help.”

Thrawn actually chuckled, and Eli wasn’t sure if he should feel patronized or not.

“I should have guessed you would feel that way. On Csilla, Chiss from the same family will braid and style one another’s hair as a social activity. It is important for Chiss to give and receive that physical contact. I haven’t had anyone to style my hair for me, and I admit I’m quite bad at styling my own.”

Eli snorted. “You? Bad at something? I don’t believe that!”

He chuckled again. This time, the sound made Eli’s chest warm.

“You don’t have to believe me. I cannot style my own hair. It’s easier and more convenient for me to pull it back into a simple twist, so that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Eli pressed his lips together and crossed his arms. He gave Thrawn a once-over, noted the innocence in his face and voice, and huffed. “I’ll style it, then.”

Thrawn lifted his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Eli said, swallowing. “I’m not good at it either, so don’t expect any masterpieces. But I can do that for you.” He grew suddenly sheepish. “If you’ll let me.”

Eli had never seen Thrawn grin before, so he was dazzled by how huge and white the smile was on his lieutenant’s face.

“Of course,” said Thrawn as he moved toward his bed.

He sank to a cross-legged position on the floor and Eli sat on the edge of the bed, taking three sections of velvety hair in his hands and twisting them over each other in what he hoped was a suitable braid. Thrawn, meanwhile, sat below him with perfect posture, his head tilted slightly forward to make it easier for Eli to reach.

After a while, Eli had fallen into such a rhythm that he was almost as relaxed as Thrawn was below him. There should have been some sort of awkward tension in the silence, but the hum of the ship and the motion of the braiding had soothed them both, and Eli didn’t jump at the sound of Thrawn’s quiet “I appreciate you taking the time to do this for me.”

“No problem,” said Eli, and he found it really wasn’t.

When it was finished, Eli gave an embarrassed giggle at how crooked, loose, and frizzy the damned thing was. He had never been any kind of artist, and was definitely no hairdresser.

“Don’t look at it,” he said, only half jestingly.

“I am going to look at it.”

“Okay.”

Thrawn rose to his feet without touching the floor with his hands and opened a drawer in his desk, pulling out a small hand mirror. Eli cringed at how bad the braid was. He should have never said he would do this. Of course he would go and make a fool of himself in front of a superior officer. He should have just gone to sleep instead of coming here at all; what had he been thinking?

But all those thoughts melted away at the way Thrawn smiled at him. Not a condescending, pitying smile, but something genuinely happy.

“Thank you,” said Thrawn, grabbing the braid in one hand. “You did excellently.”

Eli’s lip curled. “You’re just saying that.”

“Yes, I am saying that,” said Thrawn with an honest tilt to his head.

Eli let out a resigned sigh. He got to his feet and stretched to try and hide how red his face had gotten. “Well, you’re welcome. And now I should be going to bed.”

“What about your data?”

“I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

He needed to get back to his quarters to process what the hell had just happened. Eli said goodbye to Thrawn, picked up his datapad, and was a few steps into the hallway before he was stopped by Thrawn’s call: “Ensign Vanto.”

Datapad held to his chest, Eli turned.

Thrawn stood in the open doorway, his braid a thick rope down his bare chest. “I would welcome the opportunity to be styled by you if you were to stop by my quarters in the mornings.”

Eli kept his laugh quiet, not wanting to wake anyone. “Really?”

“Yes.”

Oh. He was serious. Eli blinked, shrugged, and said, “Sure, if you want to look god awful every day.”

“You will get better. And it isn’t about how the braid looks.” He let his fingertips trail over the bumps in the braid before he said, “Good night, then.”

“Night.”

Weirdly, Eli found himself beaming on the way back to his quarters.

**Author's Note:**

> No I'm not projecting a thing for long-haired dudes onto Eli, what are you talking about


End file.
